


A Thorny Situation

by StariWolfe



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, I'm shipping trash, i also like puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 06:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18088793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StariWolfe/pseuds/StariWolfe
Summary: Altair Stormrender gets into some trouble when he tries to save some saplings from the Nightmare Court. Things aren't looking good, and he's gonna need some help to get out of this mess. Not to mention, thorns hurt way more than you think they do.





	A Thorny Situation

**Author's Note:**

> I really like writing these two saving each other or getting out of bad situations. Anyway, character pictures are at https://nocte-argentea.tumblr.com/characters if you want to see them and a brief description of their personalities.

Altair was in a thorny situation. Literally.

He’d been visiting the Grove, checking up on old friends like Pellam and Arlon, visiting the Pale Mother, and running a few errands that had to be taken care of before the guild’s next endeavor. After he’d taken care of all his business, he’d started on the way out of the Grove towards Astorea village, when he noticed something strange.

A sylvari who looked to be a mere sapling was following two much older looking sylvari deeper into the Caledon forest. That seemed…a bit suspicious, in his eyes. Especially when they were headed into a more dangerous part of the forest, filled with what was left of the Risen and Nightmare courtiers.

Altair decided, against his better judgement, to follow the three. He supposed Vesper was wearing off on him; this would be more her style instead of his, following suspicious characters instead of confronting them head on. But he didn’t want to scare the sapling, or worse, spook the mysterious sylvari into doing something to the sapling. For now, watching from a distance was the best idea.

They’d made it past Morgan’s Spiral, and were headed further northeast. Altair felt a spike of concern. The Nightmare Court had a camp in the back of that cavern. This was starting to look extremely bad. He made to follow them further, to question them or ask what they were doing, but he was apprehended.

“And where do you think you’re going, Valiant?” A courtier approached him, eyeing him up and down. The fact that she knew Altair’s title was a very bad sign. The court would be all to happy to turn him, or kill him. Whichever came first.

“Maybe I’ll tell you if you play nice and tell me where they’re taking that sapling.” Altair retorted, hand on his great-sword. He was ready to cut this courtier down, if need be. He couldn’t let them convert a young sylvari so easily.

“Oh, I’ll do better than that. Why don’t my friends escort you to their…accommodations.” Before he could react, two more courtiers appeared, surrounding him with weapons drawn. He couldn’t fight or flee at this point, so he did the next best option: play it cool and act like this was his plan.

“Oh finally. I was wondering when you were going to summon a proper escort for me. Let’s go see exactly what you’re doing here.” The courtier seemed slightly taken aback by this, not expecting a jovial reply. That’s good. They still confiscated his sword, but he still might have a better chance of making it out of here alive, and not turned into a courtier. The courtiers led him into the camp and continued towards the back of the cavern. Seems like there were several scared saplings confined here, all in a small hut with a front entrance secured by dangerous thorns. The courtiers moved the thorns aside, and ushered Altair into the hut with the saplings.

“I think you’ll find this place quite nice. It’ll be even better once we’ve fixed you nice and proper.” The courtier said with a sickening smile, before walking away. Altair made a sound of acute displeasure. He despised how much the Court took pleasure in the pain of others. Before he could muse on that thought too much, he felt a tap on his arm.

“They said you were a Valiant, right? Can you get us out of here?” The sapling that he had been following said, with a shaking voice. He couldn’t have been more than a few days awakened. Altair couldn’t bear to scare the poor thing further.

“I’ll do my best to get you all out of here, safe and sound. Just lay low and wait for me to tell you what to do.” He assured the saplings with a smile. He had been through worse. He could save them.

Which is how he found himself in his current situation. His plan had worked flawlessly, but there was one problem. While the saplings and other captives made it out safe and sound, he'd gotten caught while trying to buy them time. Currently, he was tied to a post with thorny vines as his binds. It was highly uncomfortable, to say the least.

"Well, we may have lost a few...recruits, but I'd say we got ourselves a fairly valuable prize." The lady courtier, whom he knew now was the leader of this bunch, sneered, leaning in close to Altair's face. He leaned back as far as the post and his binds would allow. Damn, these thorns hurt. The fact that this woman was incredibly obnoxious didn't help things, either; it was getting to the point where he just wanted to cleave her in two and be done with it. It was hard to keep his voice level at this point.

"My lady, I'm honored that you find me to be a trophy, but I'm afraid I'm not interested." His heart already belonged to someone, anyway, whether she knew it or not. "But enough idle conversation. Why don't we settle this now, one on one?" He knew he could win a fair fight against any of these courtiers. If he could just get them riled up enough...

"I'm afraid it won't be that simple. All of us here are well aware of your combat prowess, Sir Stormrender. No, no, we don't fancy getting killed today, so we're just going to do things our way." She turned to some other courtiers. "Get a corruption pod ready. Today we'll welcome a well-known Valiant to our cause. That should create some trouble for the Pale Tree."

This was...really not looking good. Vesper never taught him the skill for escaping binds, and, even if she did, he doubted that the trick would work on these thick, thorny vines. Not only that, but he was grossly outnumbered. They'd just capture him again if he couldn't get his sword quickly enough. The courtier was eyeing him up and down again, laughing cruelly. He had to think of something quickly, or he'd be separated from the Dream forever.

Before he could muse too much on a plan, someone landed in between himself and the courtier leader. Before the woman could even stop laughing, she was knocked off of her feet by the thrust of a staff.

Altair's eyes widened when he recognized his rescuer.

"Well, I never thought I'd see this day! Me rescuing you, instead of the other way around, or me having to get us out of a bad situation!" Vesper said as she got to her feet, slinging her staff over her shoulder. "Now this'll be an interesting story to hear. How the hell did you get caught by these ruffians? You really had me worried, did you know that?" Paying almost no attention to the courtiers, the commander talked to Altair as if the two of them were the only ones there.

The leader, enraged by this, stood up and charged at Vesper, sword drawn. With a quick sidestep, the thief dodged the sword and struck with her staff, knocking the courtier away again.

"Excuse me, but I'm having a very important conversation with me mate here. Why don't you and your friends go play somewhere safe?" Altair had seen that look in her eye before. That was a very dangerous glint she had, and the fact that she was smiling while saying it was even more unsettling. There was going to be a slaughter if these sylvari continued.

Not that he was complaining, in all honesty. Their kidnapping of the saplings and their treatment of him meant that he'd be oh so glad if these courtiers were wiped off of the face of Tyria. Plus, it'd take him forever to repair his clothes where the thorns poked through. They still really hurt, too.

"I'll tell you the whole story later, once I'm free and less hurt by thorns. I knew you'd come to save me, anyway." He said with a wink. Her being here made his whole mood a lot brighter; now he knew he'd be okay.

"Fair point, but I still want to hear everything. Now if you'll give me a quick moment, I need to teach some certain sylvari a very important lesson." She put away her staff and drew her sword and dagger in a spectacular fashion, turning towards the enraged Nightmare Court.

In a matter of minutes, all courtiers present were either dead, unconscious, or gone, either being on the business end of Vesper's weapons or having fled for fear of their lives. Most ended up unconscious or gone; only a few were actually killed from the commander's wrath. The leader of the camp was lying a few feet away from them, knocked out cold.

"So, now that we've got a moment, want to explain how this all happened?" Vesper looked towards her bound friend, wearing a smirk. He swore she was taunting him at this point.

"Can you untie me first, please? These thorns are really beginning to hurt." Altair said with a wince. It felt like the vines were getting tighter with each passing minute.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm rather enjoying this picture. It's rare I get to see you in a situation like this." Oh, she was clearly enjoying this now. He knew what she said was true. While Vesper had a higher number of "I saved you" points than Altair did, the situations she saved him from were usually in outnumbered fights or when he was injured. When he rescued her, it was generally because she got caught by bandits or ruffians or such and such, so this instance was probably hilarious in her eyes.

He also knew that he was getting flustered, and she was eating that up. The commander usually had a wit quicker than anything, but she was easily flustered when she was shown any affection or flirting, and Altair loved to tease her using that method. So two tables turned on him were just perfect for her to mess with him a bit.

"Alright, laugh it up. But seriously, I'll tell you the whole story if you start cutting these vines away."

"And what if I don't?"

"Then we'll both be sorely disappointed."

"Fair enough." Vesper moved to the back of the post, drawing her dagger to begin slicing through the vines on his wrists. "So what exactly happened? It's not like you to get caught by folks like this."

Altair recounted his entire story for her, from when he saw the sapling being led away by the courtiers to their escape and his capture. By the time he was finished, she had just cut away the vines on his feet and moved to the ones surrounding his chest and arms. He already felt the relief from having several of his bindings cut away.

"You? Sneaking around instead of fighting head on? Mate, are you sick or something?" She said while cutting through the thorns. This had to be confusing for her. Normally she was stopping him from rushing head on into a fight, preferring to wait for an opportune moment.

"What can I say? You've been a terrible influence on me, you know."

"Apparently. I do admire how you went to protect the saplings. I can also confirm that they're all safe and sound, I passed them on my way here. In fact, they were the ones who told me where you were."

He raised his eyebrows. "You were looking for me?"

"Of course. You hadn't returned for several hours at that point. I was worried." She finished cutting through the last of the bindings. "There you go, all nice and free. How do you feel?"

"Much, much better, thank you. You have no idea how much thorns hurt until you're tied up in them. It's going to take forever to repair all the little holes in this."

"We'll talk to Sapphire about it. She's a fantastic tailor, I'm sure she can fix it right up." She turned to the unconscious courtier leader. "What do you say we tie her up and get out of here?"

"Sounds like music to my ears."

After binding the leader to post, the two adventurers left the courtier camp behind and began on the path towards Mabon Market. The commander had mentioned that the saplings had approached her there, so they were on the way to check on them and inform the wardens of the Nightmare Court's activities.

"So, this little misadventure puts my tally at twenty two, yeah?" Vesper cast a sidelong glance at Altair, wearing her trademark roguish grin.

"Twenty one, actually. We didn't count the bandit incident, remember?"

"Excuse me, but my quick thinking and wit got us out that trouble."

"Let's not forget who's lust for treasure got us into that trouble."

"...Ok, you know what? That's fair. Twenty one then." Vesper rolled her uncovered eye. Altair knew that this probably wouldn't be the last time he had to remind her about that, but he didn't mind too much.

"But anyway, since you told the guild about the bandits, I'm gonna tell them about this. I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when they hear about you getting captured for once." She was grinning from ear to ear now. Altair didn't care about the guild knowing, but her ego was getting a little bit too high. He knew just the remedy for that. Vess had given him certain permissions for friendly displays of affection, so right now would be the perfect time to act on those permissions.

"Oh, that reminds me, Vess. I need to thank you properly." Before she could move away, he threw an arm around her shoulders to draw her closer, and planted a kiss, complete with a mwah sound effect, on her cheek. It had the effect he desired. The thief went bright red and covered her face in her hands. By the Tree, she was adorable when she was flustered.

"Why you little-"

"Anyhow, let's get to the market and check on the saplings. I'm sure they'll be happy to see I'm alive." He ran ahead a bit, trying not to burst with laughter. Vesper began to follow, still extremely red in the face, but a bit more controlled in terms of her expression. The sylvari failed to notice, but she'd gotten a certain gleam in her eye; not a dangerous one like with the courtiers, but a more playful one. Finally, they could see the market in the distance. Before Altair could step too much farther towards the small village, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"You missed, by the way." Vesper whispered. He missed? Missed what?

"What did I miss, exactly?" He shot her a confused glance. She winked at him, or he assumed she did. It was kinda hard to tell with the eye-patch, in all honesty.

"My lips are down here, mate." She sprinted ahead to the market, but not before Altair noticed her blushing even more than before. Not that he had any room to talk. His cheeks were glowing a bright blue now. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"This woman is going to be the death of me." He whispered to himself, before following his lovely commander into the market.


End file.
